Plane due to land any minute

She says: “We can’t wait. We’re going to be waiting right at the gates for him where he wants us. Everyone can’t wait to give him a big hug.”

Nick's family wait for him at the airport

11:21Katie Collings

When is Nick's flight landing?

The flight is due to land at 11.20am and we are expecting Nick to come through arrivals by around 11.45am.

11:17Katie Collings

Watch: Nick's family await his arrival

11:10Katie Collings

Motorbike club at the airport

The group have raised money for the Chennai Six and will be escorting Nick home on their motorbikes:

One of the members, Doc, said:

“We’re glad to see him finally come home. His family deserve this”

11:03Katie Collings

Family wait with balloons

The wait is nearly over:

10:48Katie Collings

Reporter at the airport

What an emotional sight this will be:

10:24KEY EVENT

Watch freed Nick Dunn see his mam for the first time

After four long years away from his family, Nick broke down when he saw his mam for the first time as a free man.

In an Indian hotel room, on his second night of freedom, he celebrated by sharing a live video on Facebook, thanking everyone who had helped him and catching up with everyone he had missed.

And he couldn’t keep the tears from his eyes when his mother Margaret was able to join the video, seeing and speaking to her son in person for the first time since his imprisonment.

Nick said:

“Sorry if I’m going to cry, but I think over four years I’ve held a lot of tears back.”

Margaret could only laugh and cry as her son told her:

“I can’t wait to see you, I’ve missed you so much.

“I’m coming home for you, there’s nothing stopping me now.”

10:08Katie Collings

Nick's dad opened his heart

Freed Nick Dunn’s dad has been desperately waiting get his son back on UK soil.

Jim Dunn told of his relief after hearing his boy will soon be coming home after enduring years of hell locked-up in an Indian jail.

But the pensioner told the Chronicle he will not be celebrating until Nick’s plane has touched down at Newcastle Airport and he know’s his son is finally safe.

Jim spoke for the first time since Nick’s convictions for weapons offences were overturned by an judge.

And the 71-year-old has revealed how his superfit son survived inside.

Jim said:

“It has just been a massive, massive relief for everybody but it’s not over until Nick lands at Newcastle Airport. We will not relax until that happens. But we have just got to forget all this ever happened now. Nick has got to move on with his life, too much time has been wasted.”

Nick, from Ashington, spent eight years in the army after joining-up at the age of 16.

He served in Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan, before leaving the forces and taking on private security work.

And when the now 31-year-old was offered work on an anti-piracy ship by an American company four years ago his family thought little of it.

“He got this phonecall off an agent in Newcastle who he was in the army with,” Jim explained. “He said; ‘I have got you a contract. Can you start on Monday?’ Then he went away and that was the last we seen him. We were happy because we thought it was an American company and it must be safe. It’s ironic that he’s been to all they warzones and come back unscathed then this happens.”

Nick was working on the anti-piracy ship MV Seaman Guard Ohio along with 34 other men in 2013 when the Indian coastguard boarded the vessel and arrested them for taking weapons into India’s territorial waters.

At first Nick reassured their family that it was probably a misunderstanding, Jim explained.

“When I heard he had been arrested everybody thought it was just a mistake,” he said. “They had gone through things like this before but then the coastguard would just check their paperwork and they would be on their way.

“When they brought them into port the place was teaming with police and reporters and they realised this was pre-planned. But even then they were saying; ‘Don’t worry it will be sorted.”

The men were then put on a bus and told they were being taken to hospital, but they were instead transported to prison.

Nick and his colleagues were locked-up for around 18 months.

The charges were quashed when the men argued the weapons were lawfully held for anti-piracy purposes and their paperwork, issued by the UK Government, was in order. The men were released on bail but were unable to leave India.

Then in January last year a lower court reinstated the prosecution and Nick, along with five other men from the UK, were convicted and sentenced to five years jail.

Nick was locked up in a tiny cell at Puzhal Central Prison in the Chennai district of India.

As his family worked tirelessly trying to get him released, with sister Lisa lobbying local and national politicians, gym-lover Nick kept himself going by training daily with a set of weights he had made out of large stones. And he even did the Great North Run by running his own meticulously measured and timed half marathon made up of many laps of the prison yard.

“He loved the gym, he was there 24/7. I think that and the army training is what’s pulled him through. I honestly don’t think he would have survived otherwise. He’s super human. I don’t think an ordinary person would have survived that,” said Jim. “He kept saying if I lay down and accepted it I would die. They fought, and fought and fought because they knew they had done nothing wrong.

But when Jim surprised his son with a visit this January and was horrified when he saw for himself the conditions Nick was living in.

“When I went I was hiding behind the door and he thought it was just Lisa there,” he explained. “I tapped him on the shoulder and when he turned round and saw me it was a lovely moment.

“You could see they were starting to suffer badly because of the heat and the lack of variety in their diet. They were only fed one meal a day and that was always chicken.

“His cell was just a concrete room and his bed was a concrete block.”

Loved ones of Nick and the other jailed Brits, who became known as the Chennai 6, got the news they had been waiting for on this week when an appeal judge quashed on their convictions.

Nick has been staying in an Indian hotel with his sister Lisa as they awaited the court paperwork he needed to leave the country.

10:01Katie Collings

Today is the day

Finally, after four long years trapped in Indian, Ashington man Nick Dunn is returning home.

Nick Dunn speaking for the first time since his release (Image: Facebook)